I've been thinking a lot about my father this Christmastide. I'm not sure why. Maybe, just maybe, even though my ideas about death are pretty vague and formless, maybe he's thinking of me.
Just today I told at least three stories about him.
I told Dean, who has work horses, about how my father talked about his childhood draft horses until he became senile. He used to take the mail from Waiteville to Gap Mills, across a mountain, on the back of a draft horse in every weather imaginable. His family had the government contract to take the mail from that tiny place in a isolated valley to the nearest real post office. Once, he told me, he got disoriented in a snow storm and got the horse to lie down and nestled against him for warmth until the storm lessened. Now that's a story. Once when Daddy was in the nursing home and I never knew who he thought I was, I came in and he asked me about the team of horses his family had owned. I'm sorry to say, I can't remember the horses names, but one was a bay and one was dappled. I remember that. Dean loves his horses and so I told him about my father's horse love.
I also told Peter, my friend, a story about my father. And one to Bea, who works with me. I only realized a few minutes ago that I've been talking about my father all day and thinking about him too.
One of the stories I told was how my father was in the Army Engineers in WW II. It was his job, along with a lot of other engineers, to build the bridges across the rivers across France and Germany so Patten could drive the tanks across. Then my father and his friends would blow the bridge up.
I dream about him from time to time. Always something soft and lovely that I can't remember the details about....
I never dream of my mother, though she dominated my childhood. Mom was a school teacher, college educated, Master's degree to boot, all earned in night classes and summers while she was already teaching first grade. My father went away to school for 8th grade--Waiteville only went to 7th--and lasted a semester before he came home to work on the farm. He always deferred to my mother because she was so much more educated. I was a dreamy, bookish kid so my mother and I seemed to share much more than I did with my father. I couldn't even help him do the manual labor because I was then, as I am now, remarkably clumsy and all thumbs.
But as I age, it is my father that I think of more and more.
Two Christmas memories: I was 6 or 7, a sickly child, asthmatic and skinny (who'd believe that these days?!) and when I came down the hall and saw the Christmas tree and all the presents, I swooned and fainted dead away. (People don't 'swoon' nearly enough these days, it seems to me. "Swooning' had a certain romanticism that 'passing out' can't match. But 'swooning' has gone the way of 'having the vapors'. More the loss. Alas.)
I woke up in my father's arms, bathed in his tears. He was crying to beat the band, holding me gently in his strong, farmer/soldier arms. The lights from the tree were reflected in the dampness on his face. I remember that moment.
When I was 13 or so, he promised me a new TV for Christmas. Of course, I expected a color TV--this would have been 1960, somewhere around there--and color TV actually sucked big time and we could only get three channels anyway. But on Christmas morning it was a Black and White TV. I went into a sulk so monumental that my father called Adrian Vance who owned the appliance store and went on Christmas morning to exchange the TV for a color one.
I was such a s*** that I never thanked him for that astonishing act of generosity and love.
I'd like to do that now.
Thank you, Daddy, for loving me enough to let me be a total asshole and ungrateful s*** to you and still being generous beyond belief and loving beyond all measure.
I only hope I was a little bit to my children the way my father was to me....
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Living in a Christmas Card
We live in the "Historic District" of Cheshire.
Our house was built in 1851 and is somewhere in the middle of dates of houses on our street.
And everyone--except our neighbor Bernie and us (and Bernie's Jewish and in Florida this time of year) does a lot of decorations.
It's all in very good taste (this is the Historic District of Cheshire, after all) just lights in all the windows and some spot lights on wreathes and things and Christmas trees on the porch. Stuff like that. Antique sleighs are ok--any illuminated Christmas figure (snowman, Santa, etc.) is too crass. So it is all understated and elegant and I was standing out on the deck last night looking at three neighbors houses with lights in every window and one with a spotlight on an outbuilding that has wreathes and garland. Looming above them was the steeple of the Congregation Church all alight.
I told Bern, "We live in a Christmas Card, in a place that is the imagined 'perfect New England Christmas scene'...."
I expected her to share my utter amazement and troubled soul to live in such a place.
"It's nice," she said.
As left wing as I am, Bern makes me look like a member of the Tea Party! So if she thinks it's 'nice' to live in a New England Christmas Card, I guess it is.
Nice.
Our house was built in 1851 and is somewhere in the middle of dates of houses on our street.
And everyone--except our neighbor Bernie and us (and Bernie's Jewish and in Florida this time of year) does a lot of decorations.
It's all in very good taste (this is the Historic District of Cheshire, after all) just lights in all the windows and some spot lights on wreathes and things and Christmas trees on the porch. Stuff like that. Antique sleighs are ok--any illuminated Christmas figure (snowman, Santa, etc.) is too crass. So it is all understated and elegant and I was standing out on the deck last night looking at three neighbors houses with lights in every window and one with a spotlight on an outbuilding that has wreathes and garland. Looming above them was the steeple of the Congregation Church all alight.
I told Bern, "We live in a Christmas Card, in a place that is the imagined 'perfect New England Christmas scene'...."
I expected her to share my utter amazement and troubled soul to live in such a place.
"It's nice," she said.
As left wing as I am, Bern makes me look like a member of the Tea Party! So if she thinks it's 'nice' to live in a New England Christmas Card, I guess it is.
Nice.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
1969 revisited
Thanksgiving, after I almost cut my finger off, I was up in my little office and happened across what is probably the only existing copy of Spirit magazine, the literary magazine of West Virginia University from the Spring of 1969 (God bless that year...that decade.)
I was the editor of that magazine. It cost 50 cents and caused a broo-ha-ha on the campus. At the Phi Beta Kappa dinner (yes, beloved, I am Phi Beta Kappa) the president of the University shook my hand and said, "Our Mr. Bradley. You won't be doing any more magazines now, I'm pleased to say..."
What caused such a furor is hard, from 2011 to imagine. There was an article on poverty by John D. Rockefeller III, who was President of West Virginia Wesleyan at the time and went on to be Governor and, to this day, the Senior Senator from West Virginia.
There was the "Spirit Salutes" three page list, based on Esquire Magazine's year end "Dubious Achievement Awards" article where we ridiculed and made fun of most everything on campus.
Here is the breathless prose, written by me, that introduced the Spirit Salutes article:
"Human imperfection is so prevalent among us that it all to often goes practically unnoticed. The SPIRIT (as the conscience of the campus) can no longer turn its head to the atrocities constantly being committed. We've let you get away with a lot of things--no more, baby. We herewith declare war with the forces of evil and ignorance that surround us and our first campaign is to expose and salute those who in the past year have helped to prove that man is in no way a rational, admirable creature. Once done--once you know you neighbors (and yourselves)--then perhaps you'll get together to reevaluate and correct--but we're betting you won't: we're betting all our best efforts will go unrewarded, all our warnings will go unheeded, the world will surely go to hell despite us. Alas!"
Sounds like me right? A heavy dose of irony and skepticism and a bit of tongue in cheekness. And I love to say/write/think "Alas!"
There was the interview with two very scarey looking Black students who were leaders of the Black Power movement on the campus (such as it was....) Some objectionable language, but shouldn't there have been from young black men--one a Viet Nam vet--in 1969.
Most of the rest of the magazine was student writing (pretentious, ironic and overinflated) and poetry and an article by the head of the Classics Department called "White is Beautiful" (more tongue in cheek and irony).
Maybe it was all just too ironic.....Oh, there were the nude photos, very artsy, but nude to below the navel. It was the photographer's wife for goodness sake and she was lovely....truly lovely.
I'm betting it was the glass of red wine balanced on her perfectly flat belly and her lovely, if I might say so, breasts. That might have been the President's problem.
I wrote a short story in that magazine. I'll type it into a blog this week--or next, it is almost Christmas, after all--just to see how it stands up to four decades and more.....
I was the editor of that magazine. It cost 50 cents and caused a broo-ha-ha on the campus. At the Phi Beta Kappa dinner (yes, beloved, I am Phi Beta Kappa) the president of the University shook my hand and said, "Our Mr. Bradley. You won't be doing any more magazines now, I'm pleased to say..."
What caused such a furor is hard, from 2011 to imagine. There was an article on poverty by John D. Rockefeller III, who was President of West Virginia Wesleyan at the time and went on to be Governor and, to this day, the Senior Senator from West Virginia.
There was the "Spirit Salutes" three page list, based on Esquire Magazine's year end "Dubious Achievement Awards" article where we ridiculed and made fun of most everything on campus.
Here is the breathless prose, written by me, that introduced the Spirit Salutes article:
"Human imperfection is so prevalent among us that it all to often goes practically unnoticed. The SPIRIT (as the conscience of the campus) can no longer turn its head to the atrocities constantly being committed. We've let you get away with a lot of things--no more, baby. We herewith declare war with the forces of evil and ignorance that surround us and our first campaign is to expose and salute those who in the past year have helped to prove that man is in no way a rational, admirable creature. Once done--once you know you neighbors (and yourselves)--then perhaps you'll get together to reevaluate and correct--but we're betting you won't: we're betting all our best efforts will go unrewarded, all our warnings will go unheeded, the world will surely go to hell despite us. Alas!"
Sounds like me right? A heavy dose of irony and skepticism and a bit of tongue in cheekness. And I love to say/write/think "Alas!"
There was the interview with two very scarey looking Black students who were leaders of the Black Power movement on the campus (such as it was....) Some objectionable language, but shouldn't there have been from young black men--one a Viet Nam vet--in 1969.
Most of the rest of the magazine was student writing (pretentious, ironic and overinflated) and poetry and an article by the head of the Classics Department called "White is Beautiful" (more tongue in cheek and irony).
Maybe it was all just too ironic.....Oh, there were the nude photos, very artsy, but nude to below the navel. It was the photographer's wife for goodness sake and she was lovely....truly lovely.
I'm betting it was the glass of red wine balanced on her perfectly flat belly and her lovely, if I might say so, breasts. That might have been the President's problem.
I wrote a short story in that magazine. I'll type it into a blog this week--or next, it is almost Christmas, after all--just to see how it stands up to four decades and more.....
Thursday, December 15, 2011
walking with ghosts
I haven't blogged for a long time, I know. My fingers have failed me. A Thanksgiving accident resulted in 13 stitches in my right index finger and now, almost a month later, I'm still wearing a sleeve on it and it's full of fluid. Alas, for me.
Walking the old Farmington Canal with my dog has me walking with ghosts.
They are Arlene, Gary, Tim, Jack, Shirley and Jennifer. We walk by 6 benches each day and each is a memorial to one of the ones above. So, as we walk, we walk with them.
Each bench has a plaque to the person it is a memorial for and the inscriptions go from the sublime to the banal to bad theology.
Arlene was a Lion Club member and her bench was given by the Lions and acknowledges her commitment to the club. Fine enough.
Gary was a Chief of Police and probably lots of people contributed to his memorial bench. It quotes the great song by saying, "he helped a lot of people but the good they die young". He wasn't Abraham, Martin or John, but he was, for all I've heard, a good man who dropped dead of a heart attack in his early 50's.
Tim was only 20 or so and his bench reminds those who pass that he was 'an angel to us all'. And, for all I know, he was.
Jack's bench is next and I can't even remember what it says about him: something about a good son, father, husband friend. I just imagine that was true.
Shirley's is my favorite. It must have been given by her friends--she was an older woman and undoubtedly walked the canal with friends because it says, at the end, "she still walks with us...." Lovely, I think.
Jennifer's is the last on our walk. She was just short of 11 when she dies. This is the 'bad theology' bench though I think of her and hold her in my heart most of all. Such a tragic age to die. No longer a child and not even an adolescent. Jennifer walks with me, holding my hand once in a while, skipping ahead, running full speed for a bit, staring at the ducks and wishing she had something to feed them.
Her plaque says, I remember every word, "God broke our heart to show us He only takes the best."
Christ on a bike, follow that theology to it's conclusion and try to face the morning....!
The good die young is bad enough, since it isn't true. But living with a God that takes 'the best' and breaks our heart....I can't abide it.
Which is why I want to walk with Jennifer most of all....to let her know that I think her death was tragic, unspeakable, awful, unfair and that God didn't take her to break her parents' hearts, she just died, tragically, unfairly and God loved her, not because God 'took her' but because she lived. And that God's heart broke that she died before she could grow up and learn and grow and fuck up and grow from that and be who she might have been....had children, been a grandmother, voted, had a drink, changed the world, mourned and gloried....Stuff like that.
The Puli seems to see these people as we pass. He stops at every bench and sniffs them, but never pees on them. Just checking in on Arlene, Gary, Tim, Jack, Shirley and Jennifer as we walk with them.
Walking the old Farmington Canal with my dog has me walking with ghosts.
They are Arlene, Gary, Tim, Jack, Shirley and Jennifer. We walk by 6 benches each day and each is a memorial to one of the ones above. So, as we walk, we walk with them.
Each bench has a plaque to the person it is a memorial for and the inscriptions go from the sublime to the banal to bad theology.
Arlene was a Lion Club member and her bench was given by the Lions and acknowledges her commitment to the club. Fine enough.
Gary was a Chief of Police and probably lots of people contributed to his memorial bench. It quotes the great song by saying, "he helped a lot of people but the good they die young". He wasn't Abraham, Martin or John, but he was, for all I've heard, a good man who dropped dead of a heart attack in his early 50's.
Tim was only 20 or so and his bench reminds those who pass that he was 'an angel to us all'. And, for all I know, he was.
Jack's bench is next and I can't even remember what it says about him: something about a good son, father, husband friend. I just imagine that was true.
Shirley's is my favorite. It must have been given by her friends--she was an older woman and undoubtedly walked the canal with friends because it says, at the end, "she still walks with us...." Lovely, I think.
Jennifer's is the last on our walk. She was just short of 11 when she dies. This is the 'bad theology' bench though I think of her and hold her in my heart most of all. Such a tragic age to die. No longer a child and not even an adolescent. Jennifer walks with me, holding my hand once in a while, skipping ahead, running full speed for a bit, staring at the ducks and wishing she had something to feed them.
Her plaque says, I remember every word, "God broke our heart to show us He only takes the best."
Christ on a bike, follow that theology to it's conclusion and try to face the morning....!
The good die young is bad enough, since it isn't true. But living with a God that takes 'the best' and breaks our heart....I can't abide it.
Which is why I want to walk with Jennifer most of all....to let her know that I think her death was tragic, unspeakable, awful, unfair and that God didn't take her to break her parents' hearts, she just died, tragically, unfairly and God loved her, not because God 'took her' but because she lived. And that God's heart broke that she died before she could grow up and learn and grow and fuck up and grow from that and be who she might have been....had children, been a grandmother, voted, had a drink, changed the world, mourned and gloried....Stuff like that.
The Puli seems to see these people as we pass. He stops at every bench and sniffs them, but never pees on them. Just checking in on Arlene, Gary, Tim, Jack, Shirley and Jennifer as we walk with them.
Friday, November 25, 2011
toc tpig
That's what "touch typing" looks like when your right index finger is in a splint. The letters you can't touch type are j, u, y, h, m and n. And I realize that someone who has touch typed for over 40 years, like me, doesn't know where the keys are located--my fingers know, but my brain doesn't. And you left hand doesn't function well if you are hunting and pecking the right hand's letters....
Well, back to the beginning--just starting to put the food out yesterday for Mimi, Tim, our friends Hanne and John and us, when I grabbed a knob to open a drawer and get a spoon to fold in the pumpkin seeds into the cranberry and clementine sauce I made when the knob, which was made of glass, shattered and cut a huge gash in my finger. When half a dozen band aids and about 2 feet of gauze wouldn't staunch the bleeding, the consensus was that John and Mimi would take me to the ER while Tim and Bern put stuff in a warm oven and Hanne fretted about my finger.
This could be an ad for Midstate Hospital in Meriden. Everyone in the ER was full of holiday warmth and good cheer. I had about 7 helpful, charming medical staff work with me while engaging John and Mimi in banter. Mimi took pictures with her phone and emailed them to Tim throughout the whole bloody process.
About an hour, lots of cleaning, Xrays to look for glass and 13 stitches later we were on our way home. I think Mimi emailed Tim a picture of the parking lot to let the folks at home know we were on our way. Food was ready and all were hungry and it was a great meal--you know how stuff sometimes tastes better the next day? Even a couple of hours seemed to add pleasure.
The problem is I have a splint to keep me from bumping the finger (a smart thing for someone as clumsy as me) and I'm reminded about every 20 seconds of how completely 'right handed' I am....it's not just to7cy t6pigg that's difficult, most every thing is....
Happy Thanksgiving....
Well, back to the beginning--just starting to put the food out yesterday for Mimi, Tim, our friends Hanne and John and us, when I grabbed a knob to open a drawer and get a spoon to fold in the pumpkin seeds into the cranberry and clementine sauce I made when the knob, which was made of glass, shattered and cut a huge gash in my finger. When half a dozen band aids and about 2 feet of gauze wouldn't staunch the bleeding, the consensus was that John and Mimi would take me to the ER while Tim and Bern put stuff in a warm oven and Hanne fretted about my finger.
This could be an ad for Midstate Hospital in Meriden. Everyone in the ER was full of holiday warmth and good cheer. I had about 7 helpful, charming medical staff work with me while engaging John and Mimi in banter. Mimi took pictures with her phone and emailed them to Tim throughout the whole bloody process.
About an hour, lots of cleaning, Xrays to look for glass and 13 stitches later we were on our way home. I think Mimi emailed Tim a picture of the parking lot to let the folks at home know we were on our way. Food was ready and all were hungry and it was a great meal--you know how stuff sometimes tastes better the next day? Even a couple of hours seemed to add pleasure.
The problem is I have a splint to keep me from bumping the finger (a smart thing for someone as clumsy as me) and I'm reminded about every 20 seconds of how completely 'right handed' I am....it's not just to7cy t6pigg that's difficult, most every thing is....
Happy Thanksgiving....
Monday, November 21, 2011
Norman makes 5
Norman was in his late 50's when I was in my early 30's--maybe he was already 60.
We used to play a lot of tennis. I was much younger and more athletic and he beat me like a drum.
Once he asked me how I missed easy shots but got lots of difficult shots.
I told him, and it was true--not only in my tennis playing but in my life--"first, you have to be out of position most of them time. Then you learn to get those shots...."
Norman died this morning. In the past few months Reed and Kay and Bill and Susan have died. I preached at all there memorial services. Someone has to find who's doing this and stop them!
Norman was a gentle, humorous, lovely, urbane, sophisticated man. Mostly things I'm not (except for the humorous part). He was a member of St. Paul's in New Haven when I was the Rector there. He supported me beyond what was deserved. I loved him greatly.
A month or more ago, we went to his 90th birthday party. Jeanne, his long time companion was there and most of his family. He'd been through a bad--no, horrible--heath situation and came out on the other side.
It was quick and merciful, as he would have wanted, his dying, I mean.
I'm just tired of people dying. There must be a better way. It just pisses me off. Big time.
Only nasty rotten people should die. Dear ones like these five should go on and on.
When People Die, a friend of mine once wrote for a mutual friend who did die, It's like a bird flying into a window on a chill day....
Just that awful. Just that bad.
Hold on to the ones you love who live on....Hold on tight....
We used to play a lot of tennis. I was much younger and more athletic and he beat me like a drum.
Once he asked me how I missed easy shots but got lots of difficult shots.
I told him, and it was true--not only in my tennis playing but in my life--"first, you have to be out of position most of them time. Then you learn to get those shots...."
Norman died this morning. In the past few months Reed and Kay and Bill and Susan have died. I preached at all there memorial services. Someone has to find who's doing this and stop them!
Norman was a gentle, humorous, lovely, urbane, sophisticated man. Mostly things I'm not (except for the humorous part). He was a member of St. Paul's in New Haven when I was the Rector there. He supported me beyond what was deserved. I loved him greatly.
A month or more ago, we went to his 90th birthday party. Jeanne, his long time companion was there and most of his family. He'd been through a bad--no, horrible--heath situation and came out on the other side.
It was quick and merciful, as he would have wanted, his dying, I mean.
I'm just tired of people dying. There must be a better way. It just pisses me off. Big time.
Only nasty rotten people should die. Dear ones like these five should go on and on.
When People Die, a friend of mine once wrote for a mutual friend who did die, It's like a bird flying into a window on a chill day....
Just that awful. Just that bad.
Hold on to the ones you love who live on....Hold on tight....
Friday, November 18, 2011
is uniformity too much to ask for?
Credit card gizmos is what comes up most often for me.
Would it be too much to ask that they all be alike? Sometimes I slide my card and feel like I'm lost in the Sahara Desert. I have no idea what to do. I have to ask the clerk for help.
I know I'm getting older and feeble minded, but it would be simpler if all credit card swipe machines were alike. Is that too much to ask?
There's not enough uniformity--and this is from a left-wing nut (normally a supporter of freedom and diversity and the human option to be different)--in our culture.
I went looking for a new pair of sneakers the other day. I went to two stores and there were simply too many choices. I froze up and couldn't do anything but pick up weird looking shoes and stare at them. I really need a new pair of shoes for walking on the canal and at the Y. But I am overwhelmed by the selection. I don't want that many choices. I just don't.
Same thing applies to dental floss. Have you noticed lately that the choices in dental floss have become overwhelming? I went to CVS, Rite Aid and Stop and Shop and in all three cases, I simply couldn't choose between dozens of options. I want one tape dental floss and one string like dental floss. I don't care if they are flavored or not.
Back to shoes--there should be like three styles of loafers, four styles of sneakers, five styles of dress shoes and three styles of winter shoes. That would be enough, thank you, and wouldn't make me crazy and unable to buy shoes. I have a pair of winter shoes I got from Harriet's father after he died, a pair of loafers that must be ten years old and I hate (bought, doubtlessly because I had too many choices, two pairs of sneakers--both worn out and irreplaceable because I have too many choices, a pair of Berkenstock sandals that are like the last three pairs I've had (each lasting a couple of years) and a pair of 'dress' Crocks--black, no holes. Unless things get more uniform and simple, I'm stuck with that footware.
Couldn't things get simple and uniform? Am I just crazy?....don't answer that....
Would it be too much to ask that they all be alike? Sometimes I slide my card and feel like I'm lost in the Sahara Desert. I have no idea what to do. I have to ask the clerk for help.
I know I'm getting older and feeble minded, but it would be simpler if all credit card swipe machines were alike. Is that too much to ask?
There's not enough uniformity--and this is from a left-wing nut (normally a supporter of freedom and diversity and the human option to be different)--in our culture.
I went looking for a new pair of sneakers the other day. I went to two stores and there were simply too many choices. I froze up and couldn't do anything but pick up weird looking shoes and stare at them. I really need a new pair of shoes for walking on the canal and at the Y. But I am overwhelmed by the selection. I don't want that many choices. I just don't.
Same thing applies to dental floss. Have you noticed lately that the choices in dental floss have become overwhelming? I went to CVS, Rite Aid and Stop and Shop and in all three cases, I simply couldn't choose between dozens of options. I want one tape dental floss and one string like dental floss. I don't care if they are flavored or not.
Back to shoes--there should be like three styles of loafers, four styles of sneakers, five styles of dress shoes and three styles of winter shoes. That would be enough, thank you, and wouldn't make me crazy and unable to buy shoes. I have a pair of winter shoes I got from Harriet's father after he died, a pair of loafers that must be ten years old and I hate (bought, doubtlessly because I had too many choices, two pairs of sneakers--both worn out and irreplaceable because I have too many choices, a pair of Berkenstock sandals that are like the last three pairs I've had (each lasting a couple of years) and a pair of 'dress' Crocks--black, no holes. Unless things get more uniform and simple, I'm stuck with that footware.
Couldn't things get simple and uniform? Am I just crazy?....don't answer that....
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